An imminent payment from Exxon Mobil Corp. to the commercial fishermen affected by the nation’s worst oil spill has been delayed once again. The damages have been put off for 19 years so far, and this time it’s due to lawyers for Sea Hawk Seafoods, Inc., a Seattle-based company that ran a fish-processing plant in Valdez, filing court papers objecting to the allocation plan.
From The Huffington Post:
They are seeking a new plan that conforms to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June, which awarded up to $507.5 million in punitive damages to nearly 33,000 commercial fishermen, cannery workers, land owners, Alaska Natives and others who claimed harm from the 1989 crude oil spill. The plaintiffs had been seeking $5 billion.
After the Supreme Court decision, lawyers for the plaintiffs and Exxon worked out a partial settlement under which Exxon agreed to release $383 million.
The money was to be distributed under an allocation plan approved in 1996 by Anchorage federal Judge H. Russel Holland, and Sea Hawk contends that it is flawed.
According to the company, the Supreme Court decided that the size of punitive damage awards must be proportional to the size of compensatory damage awards already paid to plaintiffs. The company argues the current plan assigns some plaintiffs larger or smaller shares than they deserve.
Big shocker. This payment has been delayed so many times for so many reasons – usually through efforts of Exxon to avoid opening their wallet. This time, it’s infighting among the plantiffs. Exxon, of course, is fighting this effort by Sea Hawk Seafoods, claiming that their demands will deprive other plaintiffs of their fair share of the damages (like they’re really worried about that – they just don’t want to pay).
Prior to this development, Exxon had avoided paying the damages because ever since Sarah Palin stepped in as governor of Alaska, she has failed to collect the money. The previous governor had presented Exxon with a demand to pay the extra $92 million in estimated damages due for ‘unanticipated environmental injuries’ from the spill. Since Palin was elected, she hasn’t pressed the issue, while Exxon has continued to reap record profits in Alaska.
Aren’t the damages for this spill a drop in the bucket for a company that has raked in ungodly amounts of money in the last few decades? It’s obscene. This needs to be laid to rest as soon as possible.
Link [The Huffington Post]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
